"[I] discovered that my own little postage stamp of native soil was worth writing about and that I would never live long enough to exhaust it." – William Faulkner

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Story: Italia

I just returned from Italy.

As anyone who has traveled knows, this statement could be unpacked in a hundred different ways, told in a thousand small stories, or simply left to the imagination.

It would be enough to tell you that I traveled with my family, stayed in Rome while visiting Florence and Siena, walked 50 miles in roughly 9 days, toured 4 museums, a dozen churches, and more than a handful of historic sites. But our holiday was so much more than that. It was an overarching, 10 day story, with central characters interacting in various settings and contexts, with dozens of individual conflicts, climaxes, and resolutions scattered along the way. It is the conflict, climax, and resolution that will be the lasting memories; that will lock as scenes in my mind. But is was the characters and the setting that drove the story.

So, if you would, I invite you to step into this story with me as I retrace the dusty roads of the Forum, stand in front of Michelangelo’s Pieta, and gaze up at Brunelleschi’s dome.